… Crowds and supporters of the Iranian Mujahidin-i-Khalq, an anti-Tehran cult, were bused in from far and wide. I asked a black American wearing a yellow vest with pictures of the cult’s leader why he came. “They paid me to,” he replied…

Hell week! That’s what this city’s angry, frustrated taxi drivers call each year’s opening of the United Nations. It was even worse than that in the last two weeks.Delegates sit for a Security Council meeting to discuss Peace and Security in the Middle East during the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, September 26, 2012. (REUTERS/Keith Bedford)

Narrow, congested island of Manhattan became a nightmare of gridlocked traffic, blocked streets, blaring horns and fuming drivers. Convoys carrying visiting bigwigs, large staffs and bodyguards tried to force their way through the impossibly congested streets, blue lights flashing, sirens howling. A VIP lane was created, shades of the USSR’s Leonid Brezhnev.

Twitchy police and security men were everywhere. I watched President Barack Obama’s convoy race north along Park Avenue, guards pointing automatic weapons from open windows.

New York looked like an armed camp, or Damascus under siege. I did an interview at the Regency Hotel where Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying with an army of guards and press officials. Adoring crowds in the world’s largest Jewish city cheered Netanyahu, who is more popular in New York than Tel Aviv.

Crowds and supporters of the Iranian Mujahidin-i-Khalq, an anti-Tehran cult, were bused in from far and wide. I asked a black American wearing a yellow vest with pictures of the cult’s leader why he came. “They paid me to,” he replied. The mujahidin, formerly listed as terrorists by the US, had just been taken off the list thanks to Israeli help. Israel has supplied the mujahidin with fake nuclear “evidence” of Iran’s alleged weapons program. The muj, in turn, passed on the doctored info to US intelligence.

Angry crowds booed Iran’s Ahmadinejad, who takes delight each year in seeing how apoplectic he can make Jewish New Yorkers by questioning the Holocaust and Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. His reckless, inflammatory speeches have given Israel an excellent pretext for attacking Iran, claiming its leaders are crazy and determined to eradicate the Jewish state with nuclear weapons. Iran has a knack for making terrible public relations.

It’s not impossible that Israel might hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure with nuclear weapons, claiming Iran was about to attack with one or two secretly built nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu overplayed his hand at the UN, using a silly cartoon bomb and a red marker to press his demand the US attack Iran. Even many Israelis thought his bluffing went too far, carrying signs reading, “not now, not alone.” There is growing anger in the Pentagon, State Department and CIA over Netanyahu’s effort to provoke a US-Iranian War.

The Israeli leader has shamelessly meddled in the US election, undermining President Obama and openly backing stumbling Republican Mitt Romney. Israel and its US supporters are mounting a noisy campaign in vital swing state Florida to scare little old Jewish ladies into believing Israel is about to be destroyed in a second Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad has become a vital enabler of Netanyahu’s scare tactics. In reality, both are playing to domestic audiences. Netanyahu is fighting for a third term as Israel suffers from major economic problems. However, his nuclear alarms over Iran have succeeded in sidelining demands for a viable Palestinian state. No one at the UN paid any attention to Palestinian’s plaintive chirps.

There was no mention that Israel’s threats to attack Iran, and its demands the US blitz Iran, clearly violate the UN Charter and international law. Iran’s claims the West and Israel were waging economic and computer war against it and murdering its scientists were shrugged off.

Few seemed to take notice of Russia’s increasingly forceful comments that a US/Israeli attack against Iran or Syria could produce “consequences.” For those who enjoy worrying about a possible World War III,” this could be a good way to begin.

What was again painfully clear is that the UN Security Council is an unfair outdated relic of World War II that needs be expanded and made more democratic – and moved to a neutral nation. The victors of World War II they make the real decisions. The rest is just posturing and talk – and crazy New York traffic.

Recent posts

Mazda Parsi, Nejat Society, March 19 2019:... Imagine terrorist extremists attacking European citizens, cutting their throats with knife, breaking their hands, removing their eyes with fingers, and tearing their mouth open. Even imagining such scenes seems horrific but there are some people out there who have been trained to do so. A large group of these trained terrorists are members of…

Iran Interlink, March 16 2019:... International Women’s Day, and many have written about women in the MEK’s Manez camp. They talk of the historic abuse of women members by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the slavery situation and the specific problems for women who don’t have any place to go if they run away. Many have compared their situation with domestic violence…

Nejat Society, March 14 2019:.... Female defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq Organizaion (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI) participated an inter-parliamentary committee meeting organized by Parliament’s gender equality committee. The conference that was held a day ahead of the International Women’s Day was focus on young women in politics as well as women’s real power in politics and how to boost it. Women’s…

Ebrahim Khodabandeh, March 14 2019:... A charity organisation registered in London called the “International Library Association” has launched a widespread campaign under the title “Support the Voice of the People” to collect public donations for a television channel belonging to the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (aka MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA, Rajavi Cult). London is well known for having been a haven for the…

Ali Alavi, Iran Interlink, March 03 2019:... Reporters who talk about the MEK usually want to talk about the politics and the money. They say, for example, that John Bolton supports them, that they get money from Saudi Arabia, that they want regime change in Iran. Sometimes these reporters even mention Iranians. When they do, they say the MEK doesn’t have…

Fars News, Tehran, March 03 2019:... The co-founder of Pinkcode, an anti-war NGO based in the US, blasted members of the Congress for supporting the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) terrorist group. Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Codepink: Women for Peace, voiced concern about the relashionship between the US congresspersons and the terrorist…

Anne and Massoud Khodabandeh, Lobe log, March 09 2019:... Hommerich reported that inside the camp in Albania, MEK militants were still practicing the deadly techniques for combat taught them by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard—“cutting throats with a knife,” “breaking hands,” “removing eyes with fingers,” and “tearing the mouth open.” In 2017, the Trump administration reversed a 2013 plan by former Secretary…

Iran Interlink, March 08 2019:... To mark International Women’s Day on 8th of March some commentators remind us of the situation of women inside the MEK. In particular, Sarrafpour from Shiraz has written a long piece explaining how from the very beginnings up to the present Rajavi abused women. Some of the former MEK women members wrote that perhaps the biggest crime…

Tehran Times, March 08 2019:... Thanks to his brother’s high rank in the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as MEK, NCRI or PMOI), Amir Arjmand escaped to Iraqi Kurdistan and there he met with French security agents who took him to Paris. About the status of MKO terrorist group among US-sponsored anti-Iran groups, Zam tells Alireza that Americans…

Mazda Parsi, Nejat Society, Marcy 08 2019:... Many Iranians refer to the second group as the “fake” opposition,” he writes. “It consists mostly of the monarchists, some ethnic groups, and the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the exiled group that is universally despised in Iran and was on the State Department’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” from 1997 until 2011. It is called…

Barbara Slavin, Al-Montor, March 08 2019:... the MEK is understood to be widely reviled inside Iran as a leftist Islamist cult that sided with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The group advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government and the elevation of Maryam Rajavi, the wife of MEK founder Massoud Rajavi, as the new leader. She lives in exile…

Robert Fantina, Mondoweiss, March 02 2019:... The United States supports the MEK, once designated as a terrorist organization, but now welcomed into the U.S. family of violence. The MEK has as its goal the overthrow of the Iranian government and has killed thousands of innocent people. The United States and Israel are determined to isolate Iran and overthrow its government, and replace…

Iran Interlink, March 01 2019:... Nejat Association announced the launch of campaign group ‘Mothers of the Forgotten Victims, led by mothers of the MEK’s hostages. The group pledges to bring to public attention the “crimes of the backers of hostage takers and terrorists”, who misuse their power to the point that for decades they have denied families the straightforward human right…

Nejat Society, February 28 2019:... Defectors of the Mujahedin Khalq organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) protested in Tirana, Albania. About forty former members of the MKO gathered in Eskandar Beik square in Tirana to call on High Commissioner of Refugees to accomplish its responsibilities regarding the defectors of the group. They took action against the HCR that used…

Ebrahim Khodabandeh, February 27 2019:...The new sponsors such as the Saudis wanted Massoud Rajavi out of the picture, yet the MEK could not survive without him. Two years ago, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal announced the death of Massoud Rajavi. At the same time Maryam Rajavi keeps talking as though he is leading the organization even though there…

Anne Khodabandeh, Iran Interlink, February 27 2019:... It is a mistake to approach the MEK as a normal opposition. Indeed, quoting MEK members is like giving a platform to Flat Earthers or Creationists. It is not balanced reporting. The MEK is a unique entity. Not an opposition, not a ‘group’ or ‘organization’, descriptions which imply a certain kind of accountable system…

Massoud Khodabandeh, Middle East Strategy Consultants, February 25 2019:... As the following articles show, the complex issue of ‘dealing’ with Iran cannot be solved by the Trump administration or the European Union using the defunct Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) to shake a stick at the country. Iran’s government and ruling system is proving far too sophisticated for this stupid ‘regime change’ narrative.…

Jefferson Morley, Salon, February 24 2019:... The MEK is described by Facebook/DFRLab as “the largest and most active political opposition group against the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership.” This statement is so factually false as to be ludicrous. The Iranian parliament, the Majlis, has organized factions critical of President Hassan Rouhani that are much larger and more active than the MEK. Masih, the country’s online…

Nejat Society, February 24 2019:... The scandals of the MKO reached their peak when Des Spiegel exposed more revelations about the true nature of the group a few days after the Poland Summit. In order to prepare the report, Luisa Hommerich interviewed a dozen of the MKO defectors in Albania. “Members of the Trump administration have been providing support to a…

Iran Interlink, February 22 2019:... MEK responded strongly against the revealing Der Spiegel article by Luisa Hommerich. The NCRI issued a statement similar to those attacking pieces in Aljazeera, The Guardian, Independent, Channel 4, NBC and etc. Habilian compared these statements and concluded that this latest one is different in tone and wording. This statement carries a threat against the writer,…